He asks such good questions and is learning so much and soaking things up like a sponge. He loves going on bug hunts, playing hot wheels, reading books, wrestling with Daddy, entertaining and snuggling with Sara, watching cartoons and playing *any* and *all* sports (tennis, golf, soccer, football, baseball, basketball, etc). You name it – he’ll play it!

Lance bought a boat this summer and it’s his pride and joy! He’s been saving up for a long time and finally he found “the one” to buy. We keep it at our property in the South Puget Sound, near Gig Harbor, during the summer and plan to take it camping many times next year. The kids love going on the boat, even the dogs get to join! It’s a whole family affair!

I am taking a ton of pictures of our beautiful and wonderful kids. It is so much fun for me to capture them in unique and authentic ways. In fact, I keep up a blog where I post pictures of what is happening with us – stop by and say hello! Tell us what you think!

Unfortunately, this is what happens when you’re wrestling with Daddy and the coffee table comes out and jumps at you! It’s all puffy and sore, it looked like it really hurts. We hope it feels better, and looks better soon.

Sara is up on her hands and knees now – her latest and greatest trick! She is up and rocking back and forth and still doesn’t quite know what to do yet. She’ll be playing on her tummy and the get up and rock away, plop back down, spin around and do it all over again. Sometimes when on the hardwood floors she’ll push herself backwards quite a bit and ends up in a different location than she started.

Let the games begin!

She is quite smitten with herself!

Making funny faces, must be copying her brother.

Because his favorite thing to do right now is make funny faces for the camera

There are 3 things that I think totally changed the way my photographs looked – monitor calibration, white balance correction and shooting in manual. These 3 things have taken me from where I was to where I wanted to be – from snapshots to artwork.

First, monitor calibration. I’d heard of it, but didn’t really think much of it until I wanted my pictures to be better. And the more I learned, the more I got confused with too many acronyms and concepts that were mind-boggling: color space, color temperature, sRGB, adobeRGB, RGB, CMYK, ppi, dpi, etc. AHHHH! I came across a simple post (I don’t remember where?) that talked about all these things, but at the end just stated that modern monitor calibration is easy and will do wonders for your photos. You don’t have to know exactly everything, just starting with monitor calibration and it will fix A LOT. So, there are millions of choices out there on which monitor calibration system to buy, many price points, so many options again! I chose to go simple, read reviews, made a choice, purchased it and it is working well for me. I chose this system below, the Spyder 3 express. I can’t tell you how much my photographs have changed! Blacks are blacker, reds are more rich, skin color is realistic even in weird lighting. Blues are clearer. Amazing! I have it set to remind me to calibrate every 2 months, I hook it up, click go and D.O.N.E!

Second, White Balance correction. I “get” this concept (making sure that the undertones of your photos aren’t skewed one way or the other), I just didn’t know how to do it best. Again, after reading blogs and articles all over the web I learned how to do this that fits my knowledge level and workflow.

In Lightroom, I have it set to auto white balance upon import (also, auto tone and sharpen a bit). This corrects most problems. But, sometimes auto WB is totally off. This is where I manually make fixes. In the develop module, I select the eye dropper and go to an area in the photograph that is supposed to be neutral, light colors are best. White areas or grey areas are what I look for. Hover over the spot and look at the numbers below, are they all close to the same number (ex. 99, 98, 99)? If so, it is neutral and click on that area. If not, scroll over more areas until you find something that fits this criteria. You can also click and then select again if it doesn’t look right. this will get you to a great spot, usually. You might need to tweak a bit, but since you have your monitor calibrated – you can do this with more confidence.

Eyedropper is on the right hand side, just below the word “treatment”, just click it and start moving it around your photo. This photo was imported using the “auto WB” preset.

You’ll start to see the preview picture in the left side changing white balance. Some will look pretty good, some will look really bad. Here I have hovered over, and clicked, the white board behind my wonderful trust subjects. See how the blue tone is gone? It’s hard to see, but the numbers below the grid say about 76, 76, 75 RGB. When these numbers are fairly equal – it means it is a neutral and is good to use.

If I hover over the red shirts, this is what I get. (RGB is 45, 18, 14)

If I hove over the brown frame of the white board, this is what I get. (57, 47, 26 RBG)

The “Ah-ha” moment for me was that I didn’t need a grey card in each lighting setting (which I could not get myself to stop shooting and just do!)- I just had to find something neutral in the picture already and use that! Almost all pictures have something neutral. If they don’t exactly, then get close and do the correction manually by using the temperature and tint sliders until you get something that looks good (using your newly calibrated monitor to assure you it’s the right color when printed).

Third, shoot in manual. It took a workshop by Me Ra Koh to teach me how to shoot in manual, but once you learn it – you never go back. I read books about it, couldn’t figure it out. Read articles on line about how to do it, couldn’t figure it out. I mean, when the lighting was great – sure I could do it a little bit. But, when the lighting was even a bit tough – I switched back to auto. I probably used Av mode, thinking that this was manual, it wasn’t! It has taken me from where I was to where I want to be.

What do you do when it is pouring rain outside? Take pictures of the kiddos!

I caught some very cute snapshots of Alex this weekend, you gotta love the lips!

Sara loves the bath now and splashes around gets everything nicely soaked, and looks so cute in her hooded towel!

The 49ers won this weekend – maybe it was because the Torgesen household was decked from Lance to Alex to Sara in 49ers gear? Lance was SO proud! (by the way – that is an 18 month 49ers outfit Sara is wearing – Alex wore it when he was 18 months old. Sara, on the other hand, wears it when she is 8 months old!)

And finally, I wrapped a few presents and put them under the tree on Friday night – apparently – Alex was so shocked/excited in the morning and wanted to open them! So, he just had to get in there and check them out. Maybe that’s the reason for the sullen face below?

(to hold a 3.5 year old that is 37 lbs. around a slick ice rink while he is having a blast)

Guess how long I lasted? 4 times around, yep 4.

He had so much fun and didn’t want to leave, but I was so exhausted. I fell once, he had a breakdown and wanted to stay, but it was dinner time, Sara was cold, I was D.O.N.E. carrying him around. I probably should’ve let him do it by himself, but there were a lot of people there!

He had a blast, I had a good time, but let’s just say that I wouldn’t hold him up again anytime soon. My back just can’t take it!

All the things I want to do this holiday season involve something, but none of them are material, in the traditional sense. None of them are stuff. How many times have I tried to remember the “stuff” at any occasion and have not been able to remember, like only a week afterwards??? The things I remember are the experiences, the outings and adventures. Although I may not be able to remember the year (was it in 2008 or 2009?) I can remember vivid details. What I was wearing, how I felt, the look upon Alex’s face, funny things he’s said, and so on.

That is what I’m focusing on this year for the holidays, not the stuff, but the connections.

This time of year always goes by so fast, year end goals at work, trying to “get things done” before the end of the year, holiday parties, shopping, this and that. It can go by before you even know it!

So, this year I set down a bit before Thanksgiving and wrote down what {I WANT} to do this year. I found this to be so helpful to me in so many ways. Things can be so busy that all of a sudden, the holidays are past and I didn’t get to do anything {I WANT}ed to do!

Sara has got some stranger anxiety lately, she just doesn’t want to be held by ANYONE except Mommy and Daddy.

Not Great-Grandma Myrtle.

Not Santa Claus

Not Grandma Sandy or Grandpa Dave

Not Grandma Judy

Not Grandpa Steve or Grandma Connie

Just Mommy and Daddy! Otherwise – this is the face we get. (Which is all very quickly resolved when firmly back on Mommy’s hip or snuggled in Daddy’s arms)

We enjoyed a day at the beach this Thanksgiving weekend, and boy it was cold! So, we took our snow suits and had a blast! Sara chewed on some shells (It’s almost the same picture I took of Alex in 2007!) and was just generally a happy girl. Alex had a fun time exploring all around. We didn’t spend too much time there, as it was so darn cold. But, it was fun anyways.

Alex 2007

We got the kids dressed up and had Santa pictures at Chapters Photography. They have a great thing – make an appointment (don’t stand in line!) and have Santa pictures with a (totally funny and fantastic) Santa, choose your custom photography package, and they mail you the prints! You can’t get any better than this! This year, Alex was soooo looking forward to the Santa visit – he knew exactly what he was going to ask for – a skateboard. Last year, Santa was still to scary (so Santa had to be peeking behind the chair). We walked in and Alex had a big smile on his face – it was so fun to see.

Like a child’s dream come true type of smile.

He sat on Santa’s lap and Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He said what he wanted and then asked Santa what he wanted for Christmas – this is the funny part. Santa said that he wanted “Verizon to start carrying the iPhone”. After I totally cracked up, I said that that was a good one and I wanted that too!

We put Sara on Santa’s lap to take the picture (and see above – we got a screaming little face) and got another one with Alex sitting in the chair, and Santa peeking out behind the chair. This one she is smiling. She loves her brother!

So, when we got home, they were dressed so nicely – I just had to take a few photos myself!